


Poetry By Dead Men

by angelsunaware



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Eventual Happy Ending, M/M, Pining, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, slowish burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-19
Updated: 2019-07-19
Packaged: 2020-06-03 06:16:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19458094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelsunaware/pseuds/angelsunaware
Summary: Years of wanting and waiting, as a demon, you'd think he'd be better at this.





	Poetry By Dead Men

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They run into each other again and again...you'd think Crowley would have been able to quash this little crush of his by now, but it's easier said than done.

The first time they met, Crowley was prepared for retaliation. 

He'd snuck past the principality guarding the garden, caused God's first creation to Sin and be cast out... 

Nobody said he had to stick around and face the aftermath, but Crawly, as he was called in those days, couldn't say that he didn't like flirting with consequences. 

And after all, there had been a rather nice flaming sword waiting for him just up those stairs. 

He hadn't fought since the war in heaven (not that it was much of a fight) and he was ready for... frankly, more. 

Tempting was fun, heavens yes, but it would be years before humanity's downfall, and he wanted a proper scuffle now.

As he slithered up to the wall, he felt ready, truly, to encounter some holy fire, the vengeance of heaven, any of that shit...

What he saw upstairs, instead, was... something else. 

"Oh, bother," the angel said (or might as well have), looking anything but outraged-just well and truly distraught at the sight of the two disgusting humans leaving Eden.

In fact, he barely paid Crawly any mind at all, as if he had been expecting this (which, really, he should have been) but was upset at failing just the same.

Crawly couldn't say that he couldn't relate either: Satan wouldn't have been best pleased with him should he have failed today and all.

Yet, in spite of how smug and self-righteous, as Crawly had every right to feel, there was an underlying...panging of something. He wasn't sure if it was disappointment at there not being more of a fight, or if it were (and this would _truly_ be ridiculous) some sort of pity...either way, there was something dangerously close to an apology on his lips.

He figured he knew what _would_ make him feel better though, and it started with _flaming_ and ended with _sword._

"Aw, buck up," Crawly said, "Free will and all that. Not your fault."

"Oh," the angel said, turning those worried blue eyes on him. "You think so?" 

"Well," Crawly considered aloud, "if it's all part of the Almighty's plan-"

"Ah, the Ineffable one," the angel said, and he looked like he felt better already. Maybe Crawly was better at this than he thought.

"Yes," Crawly encouraged, tilting his head in a way that he hoped seemed encouraging. He wanted this to start naturally.

"Say," he said like the thought had just come to him. "Didn't you have a flaming sword?"

The angel, who had been blooming like any of the flowers in this god-forsaken place, wilted immediately.

'Well, fuck,' Crawly thought. 'There goes that plan.'

"I don't know what you mean," the angel lied, unable to meet his eye. Angels weren't very good at lying. It was almost adorable, really.

"No, I could've sworn you did," Crawly prompted, allowing a little teasing lilt into his voice. "Was burning like anything."

Then the angel muttered something under his breath that would change his world forever. 

"What was that?" Crawly asked.

"I gave it away!" the angel whinged in mortification but Crawly. Was. Enchanted.

"You _what?"_ he asked, unable to keep the smile off his face. 

Who cared about tempting the angel into giving him a bloody sword when this principality apparently gave such heavenly presents away for free! 

The rest of the angel's story about needing to let their first humans protect themselves soon checked out: all they had to do was peer over the wall and they could see Adam raising it over his head to defend them both from one of those great big cats the Almighty had included in her ineffable plan.

'It is not good for man to be alone,' the Almighty was quoted as having said when She made the second one, peeling her apart from the first body, creating the concept of sex and gender all at once. Crowley wondered if that had helped things for them, watching as they stumbled out into the world together.

Didn't they feel alone, now? Did they feel it, like he once did? Being cast out?

Was it better for them, now that they were two? 

The Almighty's love was fickle. She giveth, and she taketh away.

A grim smile crossed his face. It was probably for the better that they learned it this way. 

"Wouldn't it be funny, if," Crowley couldn't help saying, "You did the wrong thing and I did the right thing for once."

"Yes," the angel said agreeably, before almost immediately backpedaling. "I mean no!" 

Ah, there was that spark of righteous anger Crowley was looking for. He figured he wouldn't need to do much to stoke it into a nice flame.

Just then, the sky opened up and it started to rain. It put a damper on more than just them, seeing as the Angel covered him with his own wing to shield him from the wet. 

"You're a strange sort of angel," Crawly said then, and he saw the sulk appear on the principality's face. 

"No, don't get like that," Crawly sighed. "It was a compliment."

"Hmm," the angel had said, cutting his eyes at him, and then looking back as creation made its way through the desert. "...thank you. I think."

"You're welcome..." he drew the last bit out, and the angel seemed to remember himself. "Oh," he said, feathers rustling in embarrassment. "Aziraphale." 

"Crawly," he answered smoothly in return. 

"Right," the angel said. "Well. Good."

"I don't know about that," Crawly huffed and finally he got a little smile.

It would be some years before he saw that smile or that angel again.

\-----

The Flood. Greece. Mesopotamia. Rome. 

Humanity was depraved, even without his presence, it seemed, but that didn't mean that Crowley couldn't enjoy himself anyway. (Herself? Themself? It didn't matter.)

Yes, she was Crowley now, she'd shed that old identity for this new one, just in time to be introduced to the many identities of people as they bred and multiplied like...well, like whatever multiplied. 

When they ended up in Golgotha, things were under much less entertaining circumstances. Crucifixion was well and truly awful, and the carpenter who was attached to the other end of those nails really didn't deserve the end his people gave him.

Demons were supposed to be the creative ones, but gosh, humans thought of the best (or worst) things all up on their own.

She didn't like excessive violence, as a general rule, but she couldn't help but end up surrounded by the stuff anyway, from time to time. 

To his credit, Aziraphale wasn't crying, but Crowley could _feel_ his sadness coming off him in waves. It made her a little sick.

She'd only spent a day with the man that they now called heretic, but she could see there was something about him that made him stand apart.

"Did'ja know him?" Crowley asks politely, as politely as one can ask when said acquaintance is being literally nailed to a cross just feet away. 

"I...did, in a way," Aziraphale said softly. "Showed up for minor miracles, here and there over the past several years..." there was an especially pained sound that made them both wince "...he was usually there."

"Is he really going to go to Hell to bring about the End Times?" Crowley asked the angel, at least partially to distract him.

"I don't know," Aziraphale said after a long time, and Crowley could remember all too well that feeling, of being left out of the loop.

He cut his eyes at her. "But I wouldn't go down there for a few days, just in case."

Ah. Right. She had heard about what happened with the Nazarene and the marketplace.

Crowley turned to him, unsure of what exactly to say that wasn't a pathetic excuse for thanks. 

"He seemed like a very... special person," Crowley said finally and Aziraphale's face scrunched up in so much sadness that it made Crowley's stomach lurch. Usually, she liked winning. She wasn't sure this qualified, but Lucifer was certainly going to pleased. 

This felt different. Worse.

"He was," Aziraphale gasped, burying his face in his hands, not unlike the two women and the man that were mourning just some distance away. 

Crowley had never comforted another being before. She shifted her weight, and hoped, mostly, that the sad sounds would stop.

When they didn't, she forced herself to stand a little closer and miracled her wings so they would be present, but unseen by human eyes as she wrapped one around the angel in a way that she hoped would be enough.

Aziraphale fell on her shoulder almost immediately, and let himself sob, all over Crowley's garments, and all into her soul. 

It was not a light thing, holding a weeping angel, and eventually, she felt a tear or two of her own track down her face. 

She could say it was a trace of God's love leftover from the old days, but she didn't really believe that. She was crying and she didn't even really know why.

They stayed like that until there were no more tears left to give.

\-------

The next time they saw each other in Rome things were doing a little bit better. 

Crowley had successfully evaded his company for a short while, but they were bound to bump into each other eventually, he supposed. (Yes, he was back to being a _he_ again. Just made life generally easier, so far.) 

"Crawly, I mean, Crowley," Aziraphale said, sounding absolutely delighted to see him like they hadn't parted ways under the most awkward of circumstances the last time.

(This was after that time, but you may have questions. 'Did Yeshua rise again?' you might ask. Crowley didn't actually stick around to find out-he lost his taste for the area. There _were_ rumours though.)

He'd seen the angel in Greece before, had flirted with him a little bit, but had ultimately gone his separate ways until now. 

No one did homosexuality quite like the Greeks so far. (There remains the old standby that Sodom and Gomorrah were the hit spot for men-loving-men, but in reality, there was a pack of indiscriminately violent rapists about, and Crowley couldn't really blame She Who Will Not Be Named for getting rid of the place.)

But no, Crowley wouldn't have expected flirting with an angel would have gotten him very far anyway. It's only that he saw him at the Baths that one night, after indulging in...excessive amounts of wine and gyro, and Crowley had wondered... well. 

It wasn't really his business what the other side got up to in their free time, was it?

(Was it? Satan's arsehole, he hoped not.)

It was fine. He was fine. He'd developed a little bit of a crush, that's all. A tiny attachment to an otherwise ridiculous creature....fraternizing with the enemy was taboo, of course, so that had to be what did it for him. 

All one had to do was _look_ at him.

Here they were, surrounded by literal gladiators- men carved from marble-and yet he couldn't keep his eyes off of the soft creature who'd asked if he could tempt him to seafood _(tempt him!!_ ) and that he'd just seen trip over his toga.

Absolutely ridiculous.

He hadn't necessarily _indulged_ in those earthly pleasures yet (beyond making an Effort, just in case), but even _he_ could see all the signs that radiated off Aziraphale that it seemed almost like an invitation, at times. And then his angel would blush and bluster over the most absurd things, and Crowley would think, you know, maybe _not._

The angel.

Not his.

Aziraphale.

He had nothing to do with him.

\-----------

The next time was a long while away. So long that Crowley _had_ indulged, in many things, with mortal, fascinating, faceless beings. 

The Picts were probably the next best thing to the Greeks, he thought. A lot of wild, feral sex, that didn't matter really, what one's gender was. Could always let one's hair grow, and one's face and chest get painted, and then smeared, and marred against another body.

He had it multiple ways, been had multiple ways, fierce and loud under the darkness. There was often firelight, and always, always stars. 

It was something to lie back and look at one's creation. 

It was even more of...something to look at it, while said stars were blooming and blossoming under one's eyelids at each touch from another creature. 

He felt a human's sweat drip off, onto his shoulder, as they panted and rolled together, but all he thought of was the feeling of an angel's tears.

He buried his hands in the short dark hair of the man above him and thought of short blond curls. 

He didn't have to think of that angel again, not like this.

So why did he? 

\--------------

More time passed. Still no sign of _him._

Loyalty. Fidelity. Chivalry. Aziraphale was probably loving this, wherever he was. It was a world at least, on the surface, appealed to the angelic way of doing things-pledging one's sword to a 'holy' cause, so much higher than thou art, or whatever rubbish they were talking about now.

Crowley had spent his time with a fair share of kings and important men before, but Arthur was something else. He seemed to be an actually good person, as dull as that may sound, so Crowley was just here to...stir things up a bit.

Complicate the fraternal bonds...taint their picture of courtly love...

Courtly Love. Satan's beard, but that was another piece of torture humanity made up for themselves. 

Who would willingly subject themselves to serving some fair creature that would not (and could not) ever love them back?

It was, as they say, terribly romantic, which meant it was utter bull shite. It made him mad just thinking about it. 

Men would fight full wars just to carry a lady's kerchief... stupid mortal creatures. 

Professionally, however, he was supposed to appreciate such idiocies. It sure made his job easier when people were willingly putting themselves and others in harm's way. 

Personally, he dealt with things the best way one could when they couldn't have what they wanted.

He fucked. A lot.

Had his share of blonds (and blondes). 

As The Black Knight, he held a certain...reputation. Not unlike being in hell, that reputation was mostly centered around inferring that he'd done some very wicked things, indeed. All he had to do was be a little intimidating and people would believe whatever they liked.

He was very good at intimidation in all this heavy clunky armor, anyway.

Even if it felt like a waste of time to be prancing about in the cold and damp in the heart of bloody England, it was better than some of the other jobs demons could be expected to do.

Of course, he should've realized this was where they'd see each other again.

There he was, breathing the same stupid chilly air, wearing a cape, glowing like one of their heroes, and Crowley almost tried to get away with pretending to be someone else. Behind the protective visor, no one could see his face. No need for sunglasses here. He carried an air of mystery about him, and only lifted the visor to intimidate...what with the snake eyes, and all...

He thought, maybe, this could be a normal skirmish.

Maybe, after a couple hundred years, he'd have the time forget that face.

It nearly worked.

Aziraphale knew his voice too well. 

"...Crowley, is that you?" 

As it often was, it turned out they were given conflicting missions. Just his luck.

Who could have realized they would both be so good (or...so bad) at their jobs that they would cancel each other out entirely? Good vs Evil, clashing heads to make a whole lot of neutrality.

Naturally, the idea sprang to mind that then, there was no need to go through with it. He tried to make it seem casual, only the slightest intonation of temptation in his voice. He wasn't that sort of demon. Apparently. 

Of course, he should have realized that for the angel at least, all of his knightly qualities were all too real, and he took offense at the very offer, as though Crowley weren't promising he'd lay down all his wiles and tricks, too.

Crowley threw his hands up as he watched the angel leave, storming off rather effectively in his cape and armor. 

Ridiculous creature. 

Crowley didn't know why he bothered.

\------

The Renaissance was something else.

Angelic and demonic art truly thrived around this time. Crowley had A Time with Michaelangelo, that bastard, and Da Vinci too, for that matter. (Michelangelo might've been better at sex, but Da Vinci was a lot more fun. Strange prophetic energy to him, but Crowley liked it.)

There were a lot of horny statues being created of angels and demons, what with the state of things with The Church, and pent up homoerotic tension and all. Crowley couldn't blame them. 

Of course, none of them really looked like His angel, so he supposed he really was just left to enjoy things in an abstract (or, depending) vain sort of way. Hard, cut bodies cut into stone, naked and full of rage.

Wrestling, sometimes...or, y'know. Doing something else. 

That's how it was, at least, until he saw some of the paintings. Those were more like _him._ Soft, fair bodies, with moon eyes, looking back at you, fabric draped just so, like it might melt away. Fabric lifted so he saw the soft curve of a man's wrist, reaching up into his velvet cloak. It was obscene, was what it was. He couldn't look at them for too long. He fought a blush with indignation, looking for something less...indecent. 

Crowley had to laugh when he first saw the newest take on Cupid since Rome's heroic depiction. 'Oh how the mighty have fallen,' he thought delightedly. He was one of those soft angels, now, one of _love._

Cherubs, little baby-men with curly, curly hair and big sweet eyes, and rosy cheeks. 

'Aziraphale,' he thought gleefully, 'now that's you.'

\-------

They ran into each other, just briefly, before The Reformation was really underway. 

He had told himself he wouldn't be like this, but his heart lifted the moment they saw one another. 

"Oh, Crowley," Aziraphale had said, looking at him and his attempts to grow a beard. "What has happened to your face?" 

With a scowl, Crowley felt that warm fuzzy feeling slip away. 

"No, don't be like that," Aziraphale had said, "I only meant that...oh, don't be cross with me."

"I'm not," Crowley had sulked. 

"Oh good," Aziraphale said. "Would you like to see a play?"

'No, I would not like to _see a play,_ ' Crowley thought sarcastically. There wasn't anything good on since people stopped wearing masks and started reciting soliloquies.

He saw the damn thing anyway. 

\------

He let it grow out to be the most unattractive facial hair in England just to spite him.

Aziraphale had said all sorts of kind things about it anyway, insisted it was growing on him, to make it up to him, but now he couldn't very well shave it off, could he? 

It was a purgatory of their own making...

As for where they chose to spend said purgatory, well. Shakespeare and the theatre was certainly...one way to pass the time. Not half as interesting as Sophocles had been, but three times more romantic.

Which of course meant Aziraphale loved it.

Loved Omlet, even. (Was it called Omlet? Something like that.) The comedies were at least _fun_. He didn't need to come and sit and be reminded that humans were the ones that made life hell on earth, he already knew that. 

It didn't matter. The Arrangement was made just the same.

And if he gave a little gift to Aziraphale...well, that was just to sweeten the deal. Had absolutely nothing to do with the way he looked at him. Nothing at all to do with the way he said, "Oh, would you?" or batted his eyes at him.

Just who was the tempter here, anyway? 

\--------

Then came the French Revolution, notable not only for mass-murder but an Aziraphale rescue that he replayed in his mind too many times to count.

"Crowley," Aziraphale had said, turning to him with such delight. His voice was so breathy, his eyes were so shiny and sparkling...all that hope existing in one being, directed, with relief towards him. 

_'Crowley, Crowley, Crowley.'_

He could hear it, again and again, and again... 

Closing his eyes he could see Aziraphale's hopeful eyes back on him. Lit up, warm, not afraid to be touched by him... not afraid of the damned, the fallen. It had faltered only slightly. He had seen the once-over the angel gave him, in his outfit. The scandalized tone, unable to do much more than stare at him there, like _he_ were the obscene one like Aziraphale wasn't the one very practically dripping in pearl and opalescence. (Course, Crowley wouldn't have it any other way). 

He should have kissed him that day. He stopped time. Why not? Why shouldn't he...indulge? 

He'd done a thousand wicked things by now, with a thousand wicked faces, but none could begin to measure up to to the image he conjured of those lips, most holy, brushing his own. 

Hell, none could measure up to the reality, of those eyes, most grateful, on his own.

No, the best he could allow himself was the sort of indulgence his angel would actually like. They had crepes. Pretty good, all things considered. 

That foolish creature, putting himself in harm's way for what purpose? A pastry? 

Course the look on Aziraphale's face when he ate them was another story.

He was in too deep. 

('How do you know if you're in too deep?' you might ask. 'Perhaps when one has become jealous of a pastry,' Crowley thinks.)

\------

Sometime around that time, they went back to England. 

Aziraphale was spending a fair bit of time in this little village where a certain author lived, a single woman, who lived with her family like many did in those days. 

He had no room to be jealous, of course, so naturally, he was. Furiously so. 

But no matter how much Crowley scoured the pages, of her latest book (named after two vices, no less) he found that there were no kind-hearted heroes with a propensity for the finer things in life.

Just a proud, standoffish man, and his fiery, opinionated future wife. 

It was so dull. So painful, to wait, and read over four hundred pages waiting for them to get together.

He did try though. Didn't mean he had to like it.

He stopped somewhere after the first proposal went wrong. That Miss Bennet. He couldn't understand her.

He set the book down, just low enough to peer over its pages at Aziraphale, looking smart in his cravat, talking animatedly to the publisher, arm-in-arm with the author.

He scowled. 

Nobody told him this was going to be a tragedy.

\------

"A tragedy?" Aziraphale (or "Mr. Fell" as he sometimes called himself these days) had echoed when he accidentally let slip what he'd read before in some speech about how the angel was wasting his time, but if the angel knew he'd been reading he didn't let it show.

"Oh, no, no, no," Aziraphale corrected him. "Miss Austen doesn't write tragedies."

"Romances, then," Crowley sniffed. "Don't they tend to end...poorly."

"Well, yes," Aziraphale admitted. "Sometimes. But, she does something quite wonderful here. It ends...well, I shan't tell you how it ends, but it is very much worth the effort, my dear boy, if you're willing to make it."

"Ugh," Crowley had whined impatiently. "I don't know why you have to draw it out!"

"Oh," Aziraphale had said with a wistful sigh that Crowley would commit to memory, turning those blue eyes on him. "But it's _so_ much better when you do. It's like a fine wine, you see. You want to let it sit, and then...you savour it."

Crowley had seen him savour fine wines before. 

Crowley could hardly think of a thing to say to that that wouldn't potentially get him arrested for indecency in a public bookshop.

Hell, he could hardly string two words together.

He couldn't act just then, but at least he could tell himself that this was only so they could savour it later. 

\------

Victorian England was...different. Less dangerous, in some ways, but not entirely. The Arrangement had been going for some years now, never moving past business (and a little bit of pleasure-not _that_ kind, unfortunately), though Crowley thought he might be able to call him a friend.

That he might, for once, be able to ask for something. 

It was a big ask, admittedly, but nothing bigger than what he felt he had done for Aziraphale, again and again. 

He wasn't asking for what he really wanted, of course...he couldn't...wouldn't do that. He just needed insurance. In case Hell came after him one day. They were commending him every other week it seemed, but things were touch-and-go for a minute there, and he could remember realizing that Aziraphale would be a goner if anything ever happened to him, wouldn't he be?

Then who would come and pull his sorry ass out of dingy prisons, gleaming and beautiful and foolish, getting stuck where he didn't belong?

It had started out so well, or so he'd tried. "We have a lot in common you and I," he said...laying the groundwork.

"I don't know," Aziraphale said, contradicting him immediately. "We both may have started out as angels, but you...are fallen."

He should have known Aziraphale wouldn't understand. 

It didn't get much better from there. 

He passed him the note (the ducks had ears...or something) and couldn't avoid the pained expression on his angel's face.

More the fool, him, for thinking the angel might know that he had at least one major thing to live for.

He didn't get so much as a moment to explain himself, to say so much as a, 'well you see, my dear angel,' because Aziraphale took all of that and crushed it and his little ask in his manicured fist. 

There were the defenses that it would hurt him, of course, it being holy water, and all, but then Aziraphale had done that scared, spooked thing, looking towards heaven, as if they had ever, in all these years, been checked up on. As if either side gave so much of a fuck as to what they were doing. 

"If Upstairs knew we had been fraternizing-" the angel said, and it was like a slap to the face. 

_"Fraternizing?"_ Crowley had asked, blood pounding in his ears. It shouldn't have been surprising. Aziraphale had played...hard to get.. for a very long time, but it seemed like a gag, a running a joke.. (' _Methinks_ _the lady doth protest too much.')_

He couldn't even explain why this, of all things, felt like such a rejection. If this wasn't love, he wasn't sure what it was, but he didn't expect it to hurt this way.

It is not that he thought the angel could love him back so much as he had hoped...he had known those, even now, that had made it work between them when homosexuality was very much illegal...

There was Wilde, and then there were these tales of a detective and his doctor, and they lived and loved...maybe not in the traditional sense, but he had thought, surely, possibly, this was something he could settle for.

'It wouldn't even have truly been settling,' he thought bitterly. 'Had you thought of me as a friend...as something other than the enemy.'

 _It is not good for man to be alone,_ the Almighty had supposedly once said. 

Well. He was not a man.

And he'd been alone a long, long time.

"I have lots of other people I can _fraternize_ with," he had spat, but it had the opposite effect as intended (or maybe the correct one, who knew at this point?) and he had watched Aziraphale's guard go up, a certain level of disgust crossing his features that made Crowley feel like he had looked at him and seen all of his past indulgences, like he knew exactly how many people he had slept with, and when, and how, and found him lacking. 

"Oh, of course, you do," Aziraphale sniffed, turning away.

"I don't need you, angel," he had hissed, stopping the angel in his tracks.

"The feeling is mutual, obviously," Aziraphale said, and he watched him, ever the drama queen, drop the note, crushed up between his perfect hands, and drop it into the water...only to burn up as the elements joined and rebelled. 

'This was for you, you idiot,' he didn't yell. 'For both of us.'

His jaw set as he forced himself not to watch, not to stare after him as the angel left him in a huff.

He didn't need his pity. 

"Obviously," he mocked aloud to no one's ears but the ducks.

\--------

This time when he left, he slept alone.

He didn't wake for a long time. 


End file.
